Soviet Log 49
All Your Cathedrals Are Belong To Us We started the night approaching the end of Round 2 of the Battle of Sobornaya Square. Before we jumped into the fight outside we resumed Katya's little interlude in Vasiley's waiting room of the Soviet HQ building. She had infiltrated using her 'NKVD Courier' disguise with a rough plan to get Vasiley alone and then try to persuade him to come to his senses. While waiting, she rapidly forged a 'message from Katya' that arranged a meeting between them within the Kremlin grounds. Using this, she hoped to get him alone outside the HQ which was alarmingly full of guards. A little while later, Katya heard voices and saw Vasiley talking to little Beria and her father ('big' Beria), the General Secretary (i.e. ruler) of all of the Soviet Union! Katya kept her cool and waited 'like she belonged' for Vasiley to finish. After saying goodbye to the Chairman, Vasiley and little Beria soon arrived in his office where 'NKVD Courier' Katya presented the message 'from Katya'. They took the message very seriously and wanted to know more about who had given it to them. Katya answered in a way that made it seem like she had spoken to Katya as a disguised officer (i.e. she was a 'remarkably attractive' officer) and they bought it. Vasiley then ordered a lockdown on the Kremlin, swept up a couple guards, little Beria and Katya, and headed outside. It was now that Katya finally joined the same timeframe as the rest of the party, emerging from the Government Building with little Beria and the Turncoat Vassily in tow, (it should be noted that while her hair did look as fantastic as ever, it was not in fact any more fantastic looking than normal). Sounds of combat were immediately noticeable so we dropped into initiative as Vasiley called out in alarm. As soon as Beria and Vasiley realized there was a battle raging outside their office they immediately girded their loins. Kat missed the opportunity for a surprise attack but to have attacked earlier would have risked taking on a building full of security AND two powerful opponents single-handedly. Katya instead continued to pretend to be an NKVD courier while she powered up in relative safety. It was only when she approached Beria that her disguise was finally penetrated ("YOU!"). Vassily too realized it was Katya, so she began to try and beguile him into re-thinking his actions, (while surreptitiously casting a Read Aura on him, in an attempt to confirm her theory that he was under the sway of some sort of Mystical or Occult phenomenon). This was confirmed as she was able to glean that it was not in fact Vassily who made the Save. She knew her cousin wouldn't willingly commit the atrocities she'd been hearing about. Katya had no idea how to counter the influence of whatever evil entity was possessing Vasiley so she resorted to the tried and true 'bonk on the head to make it go away' plan. In a remarkable stroke of luck, she natural 20'd Vasiley with a KO and looked to have succeed in her plan, but alas, it was not to be. In a moment of high bullshit the Critical was countered by a some kind of special nanite defense which this logger has dubbed the "BS Nanites". Beria soon alit to the rooftop of the Government Building and fired up her Super Glowing Fuck-All-Rogues action. Under withering fire from snipers, Vasiley, and Elite guards, Katya took a grievous wound (shattered ear drums - again). She soon was forced to abandon her attempts to 'Save' Vassily and joined in with Mei, opening up with Hans' sweet Mystic Arc-Lightning musket. Beria of course shrugged off its effects (she took Shock 1), but arcing it over onto the rooftop snipers adjacent her a few times seemed to fuck them up pretty hard. Beria made an excellent target up on the roof, though, so Mei lit her up with another terrible Crack, raping her RF as efficiently as ever. Rocquette and Mei-Lin meanwhile were holding the line with the Soviet Loyalists in the door of the Cathedral of the Annunciation, the American Hot Shots raining down covering fire on the NKVD Agents/now Bio-Horrors from the upper arrow slits of the Cathedral of the Archangel across the Square. Eva was up on the roof of that Church with Liselotte, keeping half an eye on the the Cathedral of the Assumption and hoping that Lilyanna would not be interrupted mid Ritual. Despite her weakened constitution from her Grievous Wound, Mei pushed back to the front of the scrum at the door of the Cathdral of the Annunciation, but soon regretted her heroics, taking a number of additional blows and was soon back to being a one hit kill! Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she let off another massive Wrecking Ball, then repaired back to her previous position at the Taynitskaya Tower abutting the Kremlin Wall to the south. Meanwhile, Eva continued to rain down Area Effect Armor Piercing Particle Disruption Shock action on Genni in the NKVD Staff Car, blowing it up and then pummeling her on her personal for a bit before she ran out of Burst. With the Car destroyed Eva flew down off the roof, and then as luck would have it, soon ended up adjacent to Genni again as the result of them both having avoided some big Area Effect. With the help of a good Beguile Roll Eva was able to persuade Genni into retreating from the conflict, and let her go. Suddenly, an Overly Dramatic Shot echoed around the courtyard, one of the Snipers on the wall tagging Liselotte in the face with the Grievous Wound Rifle in a super gory cut-scene, leaving her with shattered eye-sockets! Eva employed her Super Slow-Mo "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" Power, then jetted to Lis' assistance, scooping her up and taking her down to the back door of the Archangel Cathedral where she was tenderly deposited with the Hot-Shots. Rocquette meanwhile was still struggling with the NKVD Monster Defenders back in the doorway of the Cathedral below, everybody in the fight being too good a defender for the other guy to really hit. Eventually though, the Hot-Shots and the soviet NPCs were able to mostly clear out the square and she felt secure in leaving them to mop up the last foe. She jetted up onto the roof of the Cathedral of the Annunciation, (giving Svetlana a wink on her way), then took cover behind one of its 5 gold-domed minarets when she saw the legions of snipers with GWRs on top of the building across the alley. Soon Alexi joined her and they traded some polite blows to no great effect whil Roc tried to beguile him that he should be looking out for his sister, (who could literally be seen skulking away from the battle from where they were), but instead she insulted every one of his anscestors and all of thier pets, (Natural 1 on the Persuasion, Natural 1 on the Beguile, baby!). At this point Beria unleashed a nasty new treat on her, an occult assault that inflicted heavy bleeding with a minus thirty something Body Save, (Roc only missed it by a couple!). Then, rising back over the Cathedral of the Archangel with unrestrained vengeance raging in her eyes, Eva furiously scanned for a target for her glorious and terrible retribution. Beria was still standing up on the corner of the Government Building glowing brightly, so Eva wrathfully opened up on her with the Tesla-Pistolcannon from across the square, totally squialing the dudes adjacent her (sloppy seconds from Katya's Arc Lightning attack a few segments earlier) and doing a bunch of damage. I'm not sure if Mei Cracked her again or if it was just Eva repeated wailing on her with the Teslazination, but soon Beria was scuttling back down to the door of the Headquarters Building, Vasilly and one of bodyguards spending Actions to open the door and pick her up and carry her through it all at once! With all of their leader types out of commission the resistance put up by the Kremlin Guards seemed to falter and become disorganized, so we figured there might be a chance to fall back and barricade ourselves in the Cathedrals long enough for our ritualists to complete their work. Rocquette, having finished healing herself up from the lovely Bleed 9 Beria had been so kind as to share with her, beamed back down to the Cathedral of the Annunciation to see how Svetlanna was doing (for being impressed with Roq's awesomeness). Eva floated down to the Cathedral of the Archangel to check on Liselotte. Katya paused briefly to persuade Alexi to flee with his sister and then headed north, with Mei Linn, Giacomo, and Frisky Fran to the Cathedral of the Assumption to safeguard Lilyanna and back up the Karamovoi. We called it with about twenty minutes-ish game time left before the end of the 4 Hour Block. Rewards 1 Combat 7 Bonus Generic Points Roq 4 Random Points 1 Benny Katya 1 Benny Category:Soviet